Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

Pro 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 September 6, 2009

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold. The rich and the poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all.

Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail. Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor.

Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the Lord pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them.

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"A good name is more to be desired than great riches." Let me just ask you right up front. Do you agree with that? I have to be honest, this one made me stop and think. We all know what we're supposed to say, but given a choice between a good reputation and great wealth, I'm pretty sure most people would rather be rich, and I can't say I'd blame anyone for feeling that way. After all, wealth is something we can get our hands on, assuming, that is, we can get our hands on it. What I mean is, wealth is tangible. Money is easily convertible into the things we need for our survival and the things we want for our amusement.

In contrast, a good name, a good reputation, is intangible. I don't think anyone would argue that it isn't a good thing to have. We all, of course, ought to be doing what we can to be thought of as honorable, trustworthy people. But right away, that raises a problem. While we can certainly choose to at least try to be honorable and trustworthy, we can't always control whether or not people think we are. I would say a good reputation is very important, but how to get one and how to guard one and what it's worth when you have it are all rather ill-defined. In the second act of Shakespeare's Othello there's a scene in which the soldier Iago says, "Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving." Isn't that the truth.

I found another interesting quote in an old book, The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce. The definitions in the book first began appearing in 1881 as an occasional, humorous piece Bierce wrote for a weekly newspaper. Eventually they were gathered together and published as a sort of tongue in cheek dictionary. The entry that caught my eye was, "Oleaginous," which was defined as "oily, smooth [or] sleek," and comes with this explanation:

Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop [Samuel] Wilberforce as 'unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous.' And the good prelate was ever afterward known as Soapy Sam.

How do you think you'd like to have your name permanently associated with a word like, "oleaginous"? I certainly wouldn't, and I don't imagine the Bishop was all that thrilled about being known as "Soapy Sam" either. It does seem though, that the higher up people get in the public eye, the more likely they are, rightly or wrongly, to gain a reputation that they often have little or no control over. And that's the point, to get back to the proverb. A good name and great wealth are both good things, but when you hold up one against the other, it can easily feel like being wealthy is the "bird in the hand," compared to the "two in the bush" of a good name. And it certainly seems like the writer of the proverb must have been smart enough to realize that, for most people, great wealth is easily more attractive than a good name. So the question is, "What was he thinking?"

Well, first off we need to realize that what it means to have a good name or reputation isn't just set in stone. I remember when I was growing up people used to think it was very important to behave in ways that were socially acceptable, and most everyone seemed to know what that meant. There was a time when "What will the neighbors think?" was something most everyone cared about, or at least they knew they were supposed to act like they cared about it even if they really didn't.

These days we're more likely to hear something like, "I couldn't give two figs about what the neighbors think;" or words to that effect. It used to be socially acceptable to be socially acceptable. These days, hardly anyone seems to know what's acceptable any more. It's a moving target. Everyone's off "doing their own thing." We're not even supposed to care what anyone else might think about it, which can all be pretty confusing at times. And in this ever changing landscape of social values, it shouldn't surprise us that what is tangible, what is apparently solid and dependable, is going to carry some considerable attraction. "Money in the bank," still has a pretty solid ring to it, despite the recent economy.

Funny thing is though, we still do find people caring about having a good reputation. It's just that, instead of a good reputation being set over against great wealth, today a good reputation seems to be all about getting and maintaining great wealth. In the corporate world, especially, a good name is about having a good corporate "brand" that people think they can trust. AIG, Phillip-Morris, Enron, Worldcom, Arthur Anderson ... all of these companies once had good names. But then, one after another, they got caught up in some kind of scandal that turned their good reputations bad. They've all gone through great upheavals of firings, court appearances, reorganization, and such. And they have all emerged to continue to do business, hopefully not quite "as usual," although that remains to be seen.

In the process though, one thing I find very interesting is that every single one of these companies has also emerged with a new corporate name. Anderson Consulting is now Accenture. Worldcom has become MCI. Phillip-Morris is Altria, and AIG is now AUI. Presto Chango! A new name, a new beginning, and don't we all hope that this time will be different? Don't we all hope they're not just being, ... well, oleaginous. But, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars it takes to "rebrand" a corporation, honestly, I'm pretty skeptical that anything has really changed. And that's because, fundamentally, the highest value in all these corporations is not a "good name." It is "great wealth." It's a question of motivation. If your interest in having a good name is solely to serve the purposes of great wealth, sooner or later your good name will come to have a bad reputation. And what is true of corporations, is also true of individuals.

I've just finished reading the sixth novel in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Mostly, the books have just been good fun for me; a little light entertainment to get away from it all. But the further along I go, the more I'm coming to appreciate the story. Not to give anything away, for those of you who haven't gotten that far yet, but there is a very interesting plot twist that comes into focus in the sixth book. Harry, our hero, has been tormented by the evil Lord Voldemort ever since the beginning of the series. But despite Harry's repeatedly defeating him, Voldemort keeps reappearing in different forms.

Come to find out, Voldemort has discovered an ancient form of evil magic that allows him to split his soul into pieces and deposit them into ordinary objects that are called Horcruxes. So long as a single horcrux remaines, Voldemort will be able to reincarnate himself no matter how often he is destroyed. Creating a horcrux, splitting off a piece of his soul, requires taking someone else's life. Not that Voldemort is at all bothered by killing people, but the process also diminishes his personality until what remains is a pasty white, snake-like being that, though all but immortal, is hardly human at all.

My friends, it's just a story. But like most good stories, there's a good bit of truth here. Social values change, but timeless truths don't. Money may be tangible, but it is and has always been the intangibles that make up the great values of human life: honor, integrity, trustworthiness, love. They may be hard to quantify, but we can tell when they are part of our lives and when they aren't. It isn't surprising, in times of great uncertainty, that we would try to take refuge in what seems solid. But sometimes things that seem solid and dependable end up costing us pieces of our soul to serve them. Great wealth can never ultimately be a good thing so long as it is an end in itself. For wealth to be a good thing, the tangible must serve the intangible. So, as it turns out, whoever it was that came up with that proverb was right. A good name is more to be desired than great wealth.

Amen.